> You are correct but misinterpreted the intended distinction. It was
> "go to school" vs. "go to the school", where the meaning is about going
> to a physical place ("a school, that school"), versus (physically) going
> to their place of learning.
Oh, sorry. My grammar books are very clear on this point and I have just remembered some rules and stopped paying any attention to it.

> Even over here, if we wanted to say that we walked in that direction but
> didn't actually get there, we would say "towards"
Ok. So the points are
1. The use of the article.
2. to/towards may and do denote perfectness (as opposed to imperfect/continues/progressive actions). I have never heard about such a phenomenon.
3. The usage of the “to walk” word that I find odd but it looks like nobody cares.
I know that I overuse the articles, I still do not understand (3) but I can survive it. The (2) looks like the most important one for me.
> but it could be a distinct issue of telicity violations in certain contexts, maybe
> unrelated to the lexical meaning of "to". Someone must have written a paper
> about this somewhere...
I will wait. I am from the background where one must choose between perfect verbs and their imperfect synonyms while translating – there is no such a non-deterministic facility in my language. I do not need to translate any longer for myself and can even think in English but if I have to translate I need to choose the proper verb.
By the way, if you are interested, my grammar book uses perfect verbs in translation of every single example of the “to” preposition section and chooses their imperfect counterparts for the ones from the “towards” section. But it never mentions such an aspect. So if a foreign grammar book is a kind of aware of such a peculiarity there is definitely something in it.

Panini, I agree with everything you said, except that my intuitions are fuzzy now. Is it really defeasibly inferred?
I walked to the school, but I didn't get there.

That seems very odd to me! But it's not entailed in other contexts (see above). Is there a reason for that? Is it sometimes entailed and not others? Or is there some sort of very strong implicature that seems to not be easily violable here?

Even in the right context it's odd:
"My school was destroyed in an earthquake that split my city into two separate land masses. Sometimes I forget about that in the morning, and I will walk to school, but I can't get across the ocean."
Except in the loose interpretation as roughly "I start walking to school", that really doesn't seem right. It's hard to think of a context where it does, except when there is a morphosyntactic change like a subordinate clause or progressive aspect.

Or something more natural:
I walked to school this morning, but on the way my friend gave me a ride.
That seems marginally possible in loose/sloppy usage where "starting walking" is implied, but I have trouble with it literally.

Notice that the sloppy reading goes away in less typical collocations:
#I walked to the planetarium, but then my friend gave me a ride.

It seems that "walk to (the) school" may describe a habitual action with a specific intent, so you can partake in that activity because it's familiar and you can simulate it even without success. But going elsewhere, the semantics seems to break down.

Yes, except we say "play truant", or more colloquially, "bunk off" instead of "play hooky".

Okay, so the point is that this is a test for literal entailment versus pragmatic implicature. If it were part of the literal semantics of "to" plus verb of motion that you have to reach the goal, then that sentence should be meaningless. Since it is not, that is evidence that the meaning "and reached the goal" is defeasibly inferred – it's pragmatics, not literal semantics. And thus UK and US English are not linguistically different. Even over here, if we wanted to say that we walked in that direction but didn't actually get there, we would say "towards", "in the direction of" or something like that. Thus "to" implies arrival, but does not entail is.

May you really say “walk to school” and mean an educational institution? I was dead sure that natives walk to a physical place only and “go to school” if they need to say they attend it. In other words, I have thought that you “go to (the) school” whether it is a concrete place or an institution but you can walk to a concrete place/school only. I.e. you cannot “walk to the School of Woodwork” you “go to the School of Woodwork” if you mean you attend it.

You are correct but misinterpreted the intended distinction. It was "go to school" vs. "go to the school", where the meaning is about going to a physical place ("a school, that school"), versus (physically) going to their place of learning. The distinction is very subtle, and almost equivalent in most circumstances. Roughly "I went to school" means "I went to the school that I attend". That's unrelated to the other meaning of "I attend school" as in "I go to school" where no movement is indicated.

Sorry, I am afraid you may not have both. You either get there or can say that you may disappear on your way and do not reach the place.

As I said, my intuitions are getting fuzzy now, but I'm not certain you're correct. It might be the case that "to" actually does assert arrival, but that often usage of motion constructions might not assert completion of that motion. In the very simple utterance "I walked to the school", it's very hard to imagine any other interpretation. But in a context like "While I walked to the school", that's where it becomes easier to interpret that something interrupted the arrival. So I'm not 100% confident in my original reply to this question (beginning of this discussion, my first post), but I know that the arrival can in some cases be violated, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. I'd think about it more, but as I said already my intuitions are getting fuzzier, having thought about it too much. My first instinct was a strong implicature, and that's probably right, but it could be a distinct issue of telicity violations in certain contexts, maybe unrelated to the lexical meaning of "to". Someone must have written a paper about this somewhere...

Hi,

The "pros" and "cons" of something are its "advantages" and "disadvantages".
/it will be done in a relaxed way, so there will be mistakes/


I yam what I yam.
Popeye the Sailor


Native speakers don't notice some features of their "language" ("language" is a habit). Foreigners on the other hand are more critical/nitpicking.



"pro": English nouns have not grammatical gender. They lost their case endings (they have only one form, apart from genitive) - so: no endings - no gender! (very few exceptions) /look at the mess in German/

"pro": English pronouns - the same: Nom. form and the Other form (apart from genitive)

"con": One cannot say have not, read not, ...(in general) (which is normal in other languages) - don't/doesn't have, read ...  is a little bit too ... posh.

"pro/con": Prefixes which are prepositions are set/put after the verb where they belong. This makes verb short (which is good) but it is hard for the foreigners to decide if it is a Preposition or a Verb particle.
/This is extremely elegant. But I as a foreigner make the Verb particle a Prefix and then the phrasal verb sounds "normal" /like German, Russian, Latin, ... verbs// 

"pro/con": "What are you talking about?" The "normal" way would be "About what are you talking?" It is a simplification - if you have a question word (and a preposition) in a question - the question begins with the question word (and the preposition is at the end).

"pro": Perfect tenses use only HAVE (they are made regular!!!). /see German as a bad example/

"pro": Conditionals are simplified (due to simplified future, regular perfect tense and losing Subjunctive) /on the other side German is a way more punctual (with Subjunctive), Russian Conditionals are simplified but one cannot see the "logic"!!! (SO EVEN "RUSSIANS" cannot understand the "logic" of their own Conditionals (I prefer to leave that without comment)) /
...



P.S.
It will take time.